Laura Billings Coleman

creative content for the common good

Comic Timing

With a reality TV star in the White House, Minnesota’s Ariel Dumas, an Emmy-nominated writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, may have found the perfect time to succeed in show business.

Her Day in Court

Whole Woman’s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller took her abortion rights case all the way to the Supreme Court–and won.

Recommended Reading

A polished repackaging of novelist and bookseller Ann Patchett’s best essays about finding the right man and the right dog.

Comfort Animals

With anxiety and mental health problems on the rise at college campuses, canines come to the rescue.

Knitting Pearls

Book review: Ann Hood’s latest anthology helps explain why knitting is so often the life sport of the literary set: Novels and Norwegian mittens require hours of sitzfleisch, and provide proof that “small amounts are cumulative.”

When to Sit, When to Stand?

Since reporting this story for Fast Company, I’ve made my own health rule: stand up Monday-Thursday, knock off early on Fridays.

Missing "Downton Abbey"?

Helen Simonson’s new novel might help.

Our Pilgrim's Progress

We let Ancestry.com chart our course for this Family Fun road trip tracing the sailors and Salem witches in our family tree.

Of Calves and Carnivores

Americans eat more meat than anybody on earth, and are expected to pack away nearly 220 pounds annually per person in by 2016.

Complications of Consent

As the conversation about campus sexual violence builds momentum, so too have reported cases nationwide. A 2014 study from the Washington Post found there were more than 3,900 reports of sexual offenses on college campuses in 2012, a 50 percent surge over the past three years.

The Boundary Waters for Beginners

A great family trip to the B.W.C.A. requires guts, endurance–and an escape plan.
business meetingLaura Billings Coleman is a Minnesota-based journalist and freelance writer. A former columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Mademoiselle and Mpls/St. Paul, her reporting and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Outside, Fast Company, SELF, Salon and many other publications. She is the principal and project manager at Pro Bono Press, a creative firm specializing in communications and development strategies for nonprofits, foundations, colleges and community causes.

Get in touch

9 + 15 =